PASSENGER TO DONATE NEW ALBUM’S PROFITS TO UNICEF
25 March 2015 - Press releaseRelease backs campaign to reduce child mortality rates in Liberia
Passenger is to donate 100% of the profits of his brand new album to a UNICEF campaign aiming to lower child mortality rates in Liberia.
The singer-songwriter, who is signed to Sony/ATV Music Publishing for the world outside Australia, will release Whispers II on April 20 via his own label Black Crow Records. It will come out as an accompaniment album to his 2014 studio set Whispers and comprise 10 original songs and six special acoustic recordings.
Passenger, whose real name is Michael Rosenberg, said: “It’s so exciting to be able to work with UNICEF on such an important campaign. Money raised from these sales will go directly towards food and supplements to help bring severely malnourished kids back to health, facility upgrades and maintenance, education and training for health workers in the region.”
Passenger has agreed that all profits from the album will support a UNICEF initiative that aims to dramatically reduce child mortality rates in Liberia over the next five years. Even before Ebola, the West African country had one of the highest child mortality rates in the world with almost half of its children malnourished and 10,000 dying each year as a result. UNICEF UK aims to reach every child under the age of five in Liberia and protect them from the danger of malnutrition.
The situation today contrasts with 2013 when Liberia was seen as a country of hope having just marked ten years of peace after a civil war which devastated the country’s economy. Its scarce resources are now being spent to fight Ebola and, while the worst may now be over, the country faces a long road to recovery.
Passenger rose to global prominence with his self-penned single “Let Her Go”, which gradually became a hit across the world following its release in 2012. It hit No. 1 in a number of countries including Australia, Germany and Italy, reached No. 2 in the U.K. where it sold 1.4 million digital downloads and was the fourth biggest single of 2013, while it peaked at No. 5 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the US with more than 4 million download sales to date.
Its parent album All The Little Lights was also a substantial hit, including reaching No. 3 in the UK where it achieved platinum status, while Passenger’s next album Whispers followed it into the UK top five in 2014 and made the US Top 20.
He last year won an Ivor Novello Award in London for “Let Her Go”, which was named PRS for Music Most Performed Work as well as receiving a nomination for the same song at the BRIT Awards.
He is set to play a number of festivals across Europe this summer, including the Cambridge Folk Festival in the UK on August 2 and events in Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Austria, Denmark, Lithuania, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia.
Whispers II can now be pre-ordered from www.passengermusic.com and is available as a limited edition deluxe CD, limited edition CD boxed set, deluxe digital, digital and coming soon as a limited edition deluxe vinyl and vinyl boxed set.
For more information about the campaign visit http://www.unicef.org.uk.
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